Researchers warn of negative health outcomes from fracking in the B.C. Peace region

Researchers met with City of Dawson Creek council on Feb. 9 to discuss the potential harms and health outcomes of oil and gas activity in northeast B.C.

Dr. Ulrike Meyer, a Dawson Creek family physician of more than 30 years, said she’s seen the prevalence of rare cancers at an alarming frequency, and claims exposure to contaminants from nearby fracking is to blame.

“It’s our mandate as health providers to promote and to protect the public health and well-being. This also means to speak up and to inform,” she said.

“A number of my physician colleagues left our community citing concerns about the health impacts of living so close to fracking as one reason for the departure.”

In the summer of 2023, 25 lung biopsies were performed in Dawson Creek, 23 of them came back positive for cancer.

Ten people were also diagnosed with idiopathic interstitial fibrosis from 2016 to 2018, a scarring of the lungs with no known cause.

The incidence of that type of lung scarring is nine per 100,000, said Meyers, who was startled by seeing ten cases in a population of just over 12,000 in just two years.

Fracking began in the Peace region in the early 2000s, said Meyer, who estimates 30,000 wells are located there.

Meyer was accompanied by Dr. Élyse Caron-Beaudoin, a PhD researcher with the University of Toronto’s health department and Dr. Margaret McGregor, a family physician with the University of B.C. department of family practice.

Caron-Beaudoin said fracking chemicals can contaminate water and air, causing damage to human cells at the chromosomal level.

“This damage at the cellular level is widely accepted as the underlying causal pathway for human diseases, including cancer, respiratory and cardiac issues, and harmful birth outcomes,” she explained.

For the past ten years, Caron-Beaudoin has been working to track the health impacts from exposure to oil and gas industry chemicals.

In 2016 and 2019, hair, nails and urine samples were collected from two groups of pregnant women in northeast B.C., in addition to collecting tap water and air samples from their homes.

Caron-Beaudoin said chemical levels were much higher in the two groups when compared to the general Canadian population.

McGregor said they identified 52 studies on populations living near fracked gas from 2000 to 2022, finding that a large majority of the studies reported greater risks for impaired fetal growth, premature birth, congenital malformations, childhood cancer and heart disease.

Councillor Jerimy Earl said the topic needs considerate discussion, as many residents in Dawson Creek make their living through employment in the oil and gas sector.

“Our first priority is always the health and safety of the public,” he said. “We also have to be mindful that this is how a lot of people pay their mortgages and feed their kids.”

Earl said additional air quality monitors have been installed throughout the region, noting the data from them should be publicly available.

He added the city maintains and treats its own water, with records that could be made available to the researchers.

The researchers intend to keep studying health outcomes in the Peace region in relation to the proximity of fracking activity.

“There has been a growing sort of awareness on the part of the scientific community based on this research that keeps coming out about the health harms of the gas industry,” said McGregor.

“There needs to be a very clear-eyed view of what the problems are and how to mitigate them.”

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